Conservative and far-right media outlets, already skeptical of
Mueller's probe into President Donald Trump's ties to Russia,
grew louder in their calls for FBI Director Chris Wray to either
clean house or for Mueller to resign. It came after news that two
special counsel investigators at one point exhibited perceived
political bias.

Trump again characterized the criminal justice system as "rigged"
during a rally in Florida on Friday, echoing comments he made
last weekend following former national security Michael Flynn's
guilty plea as part of Mueller's probe.

"So General Flynn lies to the FBI and his life is destroyed,
while Crooked Hillary Clinton, on that now famous FBI holiday
'interrogation' with no swearing in and no recording, lies many
times," Trump tweeted last Saturday. "And nothing happens to her?
Rigged system, or just a double standard?"

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Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the chairman of the House
Judiciary Committee, implored Wray during a hearing on Thursday
to "repair the damage done by" former FBI Director James Comey.
And he took a shot at Mueller's investigation, questioning "the
magnitude of insider bias" that exists on his team.

Former FBI agents who spoke to Business Insider this week
characterized the outcry as "nonsense" aimed at discrediting an
investigation that has dogged Trump and the GOP more broadly for
over a year.

Frank Montoya, Jr., a former FBI special agent who served as the
Director of the Office of the National Counterintelligence
Executive, was blunt.

"There is a lot of anger in the FBI (the entire
intelligence community, for that matter) over how this president
will say nary a negative word about the Russians, but will insult
us every chance he gets," he said.

'Moscow was happy, I'm sure'

Peter Strzok, a veteran counterintelligence agent who was among
those overseeing the investigation into former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton's private email server last year, was abruptly removed from
Mueller's Russia probe in late July and relegated to the
human resources department.

Neither Mueller nor the Justice Department have commented on
Strzok's sudden demotion. But he was apparently removed as part
of a broader investigation into the bureau's handling of the
Clinton email probe by the DOJ's inspector general.

Strzok reportedly sent text messages during the presidential
campaign to another member of Mueller's team, Lisa Page, that
could be perceived as anti-Trump. He and Page were also having an
extramarital affair that the DOJ worried could make them both
subject to blackmail. Page left Mueller's team over the summer
for unrelated reasons.

High-profile conservative figures and Trump allies, such as the
conservative-leaning Wall Street
Journal editorial board and Fox News host Sean Hannity,
quickly weaponized another damaging report published last week.
It said Strzok had been instrumental in changing Comey's final
characterization of Clinton's conduct from "grossly
negligent" - which would have carried legal consequences - to
"extremely careless."

Former FBI agents who knew and worked with Strzok
acknowledged that he should have been more circumspect with his
comments, even if they were private, given the highly politicized
nature of both the Clinton and Russia probes. But they broadly
characterized him as a professional who never expressed his
political opinions when conducting an investigation.

Montoya, who served in the bureau for over two decades,
called Strzok "an exceptional agent" and "rising star" whose
removal from Mueller's probe was "a great loss to
the investigation."

"Moscow was happy, I'm sure when that happened," he
said.

"There's a lot of partisan political white noise out there
about Pete's supposed 'bias,'" Montoya said. "It's all nonsense.
I've known Pete for a long time. I didn't know what his political
opinions were. Never asked. Never cared. That's the way it was
for the vast majority of us."

Another veteran FBI counterintelligence agent who knew
Strzok but requested anonymity to discuss internal DOJ decisions
called him an "expert" in counterintelligence work who "rose to
the level of Deputy Assistant Director in the usual way: by being
a reliable, consistent, and capable member of the executive
team."

'He didn't act alone'

The
nature of FBI investigations makes it impossible for one employee
to exert outsized influence over others, former agents
emphasized.

"There's been a lot of accusation lately in the public
arena about how Pete's supposed biases may have affected outcome
of the email investigation and predication for Russia
investigation," Montoya said. "More nonsense."

"Pete wasn't the only guy working on those cases," he
added. "His was one voice, albeit an important one, but there
were other important voices in the mix, too."

For instance, Montoya said, look at the email
investigation.

"Professional, experienced prosecutors and senior
leadership (above Pete) in the FBI played the key roles in the
final decision not to prosecute Clinton," he said. "Pete may have
helped draft the public messaging at the conclusion of the case,
but he didn't act alone. I participated in quite a few of these
matters myself and the planning process was always a group
effort."

Former FBI unit chief Mark Rossini, who spent 17 years at
the bureau, largely agreed.

"It would be literally impossible for one human being to
have the power to change or manipulate evidence or intelligence
according to their own political preferences," he
said.

"FBI agents, like anyone else, are human
beings. We are allowed to have our political
beliefs. If anything, the overwhelming majority of agents are
conservative Republicans," he added.

Former FBI counterintelligence agent Asha Rangappa made a
similar point in an interview earlier this week.

"The FBI investigators who are working on any given day
will probably be mostly politically conservative," Rangappa said,
drawing from her interactions with agents under President George
W. Bush. That is one reason, she said, why Republicans should
"think carefully" about the precedent they're setting in pointing
to agents' political leanings as evidence of a tainted
investigation.

'He was thrown to the wolves'

caption

Robert Mueller.

source

Aaron Bernstein/Reuters

Still, some agents said there is lingering resentment over
Comey's handling of the Clinton email probe - not necessarily
because of the conclusions he drew, but because of the process
decisions he made at various points in the investigation that
left the bureau vulnerable to partisan attacks.

The two that drew the biggest criticism last year: an
unprecedented press conference in which he chastised Clinton for
using a private server but ultimately cleared her of criminal
wrongdoing; and a letter to Congress announcing that he was
effectively reopening the case 11 days before the
election.

"There was a perception among many agents that the bureau
was tending to become more politicized than it had been in the
past," said former FBI special agent Mark Ruskin, author of
"The Pretender: My Life Undercover
for the FBI."

"Some believed that Comey was allowing political winds to
buffet the bureau as a whole," he continued. "And there was an
ambiguity about which way it was even being politicized."

In any case, Ruskin said, "both sides of the aisle were
getting the impression that the bureau was not acting completely
objectively, and the agents blamed it more on Comey because he
seemed to waffle." The ambiguity was frustrating, Ruskin said,
given Comey's propensity for taking matters into his own
hands.

But the agents suggested the perceived politicization of
the FBI was not the result of individual agents' biases.
Incidentally, it came because of the former director's excessive
attempts to avoid the appearance of partisanship.

"I think Comey did more damage than he realized or intended
by how he handled things last year," said former FBI
counterintelligence agent Scott Olson."But Director
Wray has corrected that by now."

Some still have questions, however, about why Strzok was
"thrown to the wolves."

"I think Pete did what he was asked to do, and then he was thrown
to the wolves," said the former counterintelligence agent who
requested anonymity to discuss Strzok. "What I don't yet see is
what Mueller is getting out of it. But there is a lot going on
here that is still not known to the public."